Lawmakers Smell Smoke With Obama's Net Neutrality Plan

Congressional investigators say they won’t hesitate to ratchet up their investigation of the Federal Communications Commission’s development of net neutrality rules.

House and Senate committees sent letters this month requesting documents, communications and visitors logs from the independent agency to sniff out whether the White House exerted improper influence on the rulemaking process.

During an interview, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) did not rule out holding hearings or calling White House officials to testify before his panel, if that is where the investigation leads.

Jason Chaffetz

“I think there’s enough smoke here that it’s really worth looking at,” he told The Hill. “And we’ll let the facts dictate where we go. But we are going to look at it with a skeptical eye and see what the documents demonstrate.”

At another point, he said if the FCC provides documents that are “shallow and incomplete, we will ratchet it up in a hurry.”

Republicans have been relentless in their accusations that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler caved to pressure from the White House to reclassify broadband Internet similar to traditional telephones. The move is part of an effort to enforce rules barring Internet service providers from prioritizing any bit of Internet traffic above another.

Republicans have also accused President Obama of bullying the independent agency by releasing a YouTube video pushing the FCC to take up reclassification. Republican FCC commissioner Ajit Pai has even taken to referring to the regulations as “Obama’s plan.”

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